Dale has worked tirelessly within conservative and libertarian legal and policy circles to advance the idea that gay marriage is a constitutional right and net social positive. He's done this for years and years and years, despite it being pointed out over and over again that once you get past the personal niceties ("wouldn't it be nice if Jeff and Fez could have a marriage cake?") and look at the legal and political levels, the "movement" is just a stalking horse for a particularly nasty strain of neo-marxist Gramscian revolutionaries, practicing the tactic of intentionally destroying bedrock cultural institutions.

What did he think was going to happen once "the movement" got its way - gracious victory?

Winning the "right" was never about gays getting married. It was about destroying conventional morality and making the cost of holding traditional moral beliefs prohibitive. What's going on now is just the playing out of the revolutionary tactic.

Screw them. They made this irresponsible argument and stigmatized those who believe words mean things as the equivalent of Jim Crow-supporting racists. Now that they've succeeded in perverting reason and language and deceptively creating a new class of bigots, they want to try to be nice about it? No, the conversation ended when we were legally declared bigots. That's screw you now, screw you tomorrow, screw you forever. And I dare you to call me a bigot to my face--and I dare you to condescendingly tell me it's OK if I dissent. Is that clear enough?

Carpenter and those like him now seek to distance themselves from the very logical consequences of the very thing they support-gay marriage. Many of us have maintained for quite awhile that you can either have "gay marriage" or a robust First Amendment , but you can't have both-not in the real world . Those who believe you can have both have been useful idiots of the Left. Carpenter and the other 50 signers demonstrate they still are.

Gay Marriage supporters, myself included, are asking other people to accept a change to a 10,000 year old institution. Even for the most open minded person, this is a big change. From a mental model perspective, many people simply don't yet possess the concept that allows same-sex marriage to fit within the definition of marriage. That's changing very fast. Calling folks bigots who aren't quite fast enough in switching to this new way of thinking is hurtful and counter productive. Be patient and keep up the positive pressure and reasoned arguments - but leave room for folks to process and test their own thinking.

Perhaps if gay marriage supporters would work too, how do I put it... change the laws, you know legally by voting and passing legislation, instead of working in the courts to overturn historical laws based on long-standing societal norms and of course to besmirch anyone who disagrees with them as a homophobic racists in the process... Perhaps if that was the case I would look at this topic differently. But since they don't, me and my "homophobic" friends will continue to look at this effort as an affront to our society and to the general rule of law. Nothing more, nothing less.

Meh. I posted on this at Volokh days ago. I have no use for their statement. I don't need their "support" and I don't trust same-sex marriage supporters to reward any goodwill they or I would show any more than they've rewarded bakers, photographers, CEOs or beauty queens who dared disagree with the correct opinion.

Plus, in their smug statement about "tolerance" they make sure to tell you that they are not part of the great unwashed, stating their cred as ssm supporters up front, in case anyone should mistake their intentions.

"Tu quoque", we always say here, is a poor defense. Then we use it.I'm opposed to bashing and shaming in most cases and especially I'm opposed to bashing and shaming over things people hold as strongly as I do, and for the same reasons. I would never try to shame or scorn a Muslim or an Amish, though I think both are adrift in regards to God's will.I would never shame, though I disagreed, with someone who believes homosexuality is filthy and sinful. I might shame some of the language used.The bashers on both sides have learned from each other, and those who comment along the lines that those filthy sodomites should just shut up and be glad we don't send them to prison should ask themselves, "What respect do we offer, and why do we expect more than we offer?" Both sides should consider that.

I signed the petition, but I'm not sanguine that it will have the slightest impact on the current kulturkampf. The victors want to see their enemies driven before them and hear the lamentations of their women. The fascistic Left is in power now, and they are using all of that power to grind the faces of their foes.

This is a case of a boat demanding to be called a car. insanity...the polls showing that people are ok with ssm are a reflection of the majority not giving at damn what they are called not an acceptance that theirs is a marriage. It's more of a "shut-up and call yourself whatever but mostly shut-up. The activists have taken it a bridge too far.

I have the same room problem and he's 21 and at college most of the time. We figure Hoffa's corpse is right under the tail section of Earhart's plane next to the Holy Grail and on top of the workable plan for Middle East peace.

I could care less what same-sex marriage supporters say (of which I was one until recently). It is the gay couples who need to speak up for other peoples rights (religion?) if they expect to receive "rights" not guaranteed in the bill of rights. Their silence (or outright support for strong-arm tactics) speaks volumes. For them it is not about rights. It's about forcing other people to think like you. When they showed they would use the force of our corrupt government and legal system to violate peoples first amendment rights, they lost me for good. Too late to turn about now.

Howdy #8Oh, it's more than the sympathy generated by people like the Westies. My point remains: there are ugly people surrounding the issue of homosexual activity and same-sex relationships. Supporters of homosexual rights (as opposed to just people who want others to be left alone) have done some ugly stuff -- following the example of people who despise them.

Howdy VaTeacherI care a great deal about both. It seems to me that, among decent people who see this differently, the state has no business being the arbiter. The state establishes a legal mechanism for families to register their partnership -- use any value-neutral term you like, but guard the rights of whoever asks.Meantime, businesses operate as their owners choose. If Tom is glad to sell a cake and some flowers to Theresa and Elizabeth, he does so. If his baker Jason disagrees, they work it out or Jason chooses another employer. Jason doesn't get to tell the owner that the business won't (or will) support same-sex marriage or the Ku Klux Klan.Meantime, Old School and others who think this is nuts continue to believe it is nuts but are tactful in public. Perez Hilton and Dan Savage still think Old School is a Puritanesque bigot, but they are tactful in public.

This statement is a good thing, though sadly I think it will not have any impact on the people who are the real problem. People like Eugene Volokh were always in favor of both unrestricted marriage contracts AND unrestricted freedom of association, along with free discourse.

That said, if I lived in the socially-conservative bubble that a number of commenters here apparently do, and didn't have real live gay friends to put a human face on this issue, I'd be through with this. Done. Over. Screw the gay-marriage activists.

Again, the real, live gay people I count as friends or acquaintances keep me from that. But if my sole or primary exposure to this issue were through the people who attacked Brendan Eich (and a lot of other people more directly back in 2008), I'd be through with them and they could count on me to vote to oppose them every time I got the chance.

I am still VERY concerned with the push to use force to make people serve customers they don't want to serve. I don't see this as something that can or should be addressed with some "religious exemption" either. If you're an atheist and you don't want to photograph a gay wedding, or you don't want to hang out with gay people -- or you don't want to go to a wedding that isn't vegan, or you don't want to go to a wedding that is vegan, or whatever -- that's your right. It's not contingent on being able to claim some religious belief, nor should someone who IS devoutly religious have to fall back on a doctrine of their church to have freedom of association.

If someone really hates having bird dogs lean on them or maybe crawl into their laps, they'll have a lousy time at my house. But I don't really have the time to deal with people who don't like dogs. And if someone has anything against pit bulls, they can go jump off the nearest cliff for all I care.

That's my prerogative. I can't back it up with any religious belief, or anything else. It's my choice. And that should be true of anyone else, regarding any other people.

I think that gay marriage activists are asking for a well-deserved backlash, and they're likely getting it. The sad thing is that there are a lot of gay people who aren't jerks, have nothing to do with any of this crap, but want to be able to get a civil marriage contract. And I still support them.

As SmokeVanThorn said how presumptuous and arrogant. I live in southern California as far from a social conservative bubble as you get. I work in a field quite famous for having a lot of gay men, so I probably have more gay friends than you do. In the short time that same sex "marriage" has been legal in California, my gay friends who embraced it are divorced, one of them working on his second divorce. My gay friends are unknowing pawns in the Marxist march through the institutions.

Marriage is a specific institution with a specific purpose. It was never intended for every love affair or relationship, only those that had the potential of creating children. But given your fondness for begging the question and make assumptions I can't imagine that any logic or reason means anything to you.

I'm not sure how anyone can argue with a straight face (so to speak) that we need government civil rights protections to ensure that people who want to have a gay wedding will be able to find a florist or a wedding planner who won't discriminate against them. Really? REALLY?

This whole fight is obviously about attacking religions who won't define sin according to the progressive playbook. I don't think its going to end well.

You have no idea of my background or anyone else's here, who I know, who I have been friends with, and who I have helped over the years. So screw your attempt to declare yourself having broader life experience.

Just for the record, among other things, I volunteered on an AIDS ward during some of the worst years of the crisis, and have counseled and supported many gay people during their recovery from addictions, and etc., etc., etc.

Not remotely a bubble. In fact, having said what you did, you might live in the bubble, making assumptions the way you did.

Well, when one writes about gay people as if they are something out there, totally foreign to one's experience, that's the impression it gives.

Why do you think I was referring to you, exactly?

I realize that not everyone is Ernest Hemingway, either, and every word that someone writes on the Internet is not necessarily calculated nor well-chosen even. Still, I can only read what someone writes, and take it for what it says. I assure you, I did choose the word "apparently" deliberately, and it does have a definition. Why the defensive rant?

Too bad you are so quick to react to some perceived slight that you didn't read the rest of what I wrote up there, or you might have actually understood what the point was.

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